


I think I always will

by DeaPotteriana



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: After AYITL, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Jess Mariano is perfect for Rory, Literati, Mentions of Dean/Rory, Mentions of Lorelai Gilmore - Freeform, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, Rory is pregnant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29859036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeaPotteriana/pseuds/DeaPotteriana
Summary: “I think I may have loved you,” I told him.I think I always will.“But I… I just need to let it go.”Truth is, I never really did.
Relationships: Rory Gilmore/Jess Mariano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	I think I always will

**I think I always will**

“I think I may have loved you,” I told him then. My voice, my shoulders, my chest felt weighted down by the importance of those seven words — and wasn’t seven the magic number?

Wasn’t it just another way of the universe to look down at me, a freshly graduated kid who, now I can admit it, knew basically nothing of the world, and try to make me understand how profound and life-changing moment that was?

Wasn’t that magic a reminder, from the time that had come and the time that would follow, that things don’t always go the way you’d want?

I should have told him before. Jess deserved better, in a different and similar way Dean had just the year before.

Jess deserved to hear me say those three _also magical_ words that always seemed to strangle me in the past, but that I had never felt so deeply than with him.

_Still haven’t._

And I deserved to look into the crowd of my graduation and see the person I loved, to have him hold me and say that change was perfectly normal, and let _me_ hold _him_ and say I’d never give up on him. Because time and time again he had proved himself to be the only person in my life to always tell me things how they were, never babying me, never letting me fall down too much and yet accepting and loving that I wasn’t perfect. I should have done the same for him.

Now, as an adult, I know I owe him a lot.  
I owe him Yale — but that’s a story for another time.

Because that day, my last one at Chilton as a student, had been the kind of day that you take with you forever, the one movies talk about and that you imagine while hiding under the cover, pretending to sleep as your mind travels in made-up lives you wish you had.

And those silent phone calls had said nothing and too much at the same time.

So I was done.  
I didn’t want to pine, I didn’t want him to think he had the power to hurt me, I didn’t want to feel that way. So I decided I didn’t.

Now, over the age of thirty and more perspective on my life, I can almost hear my mother’s voice, clear as day, “ _Rory doesn’t lie_ ”.

Mom, best friend, forever confident: does it count if you lie to yourself?

“I think I may have loved you,” I told him.

_I think I always will._

“But I… I just need to let it go.”

_Truth is, I never really did._

At that point, with my heart breaking and the future calling for me from just outside the door, I simply said _goodbye_ , fully believing that the rules of the universe would have kept us from seeing each other again.

I thank the magic of the number seven that Jess had a thing for breaking the rules.

__________________________________________

The red pen slid from Jess’ hand and fell on the desk, before rolling slowly to the edge and fall on the floor. It did it slowly, almost unnaturally, and he had plenty of time to catch it, but he didn’t move.

His other hand was closed on the manuscript and he forced himself to open it and let the papers fall on the desk, before clenching and unclenching his fingers to try to stop them from shaking.

His eyes fell on those words, the last part of the chapter, that chapter which Jess had decided to edit like it wasn’t their story, like he didn’t know the author, like he felt nothing for the girl who had thought and put everything on paper. He had been impartial for every single scene of every single chapter, from the sweet mother-daughter moments that made him ache for a family and a mother he never felt he belonged to, to the ones where Emily and Richard Gilmore’s money bled through the words, and even when Dean first appeared or, worse, the moments where they relationship was supported in a way his and Rory’s never was.

It hadn’t been easy, but she was a hell of a writer and he had loved every line — and he was sure that many people, when the book was ready to be published, would love it and think they knew Rory the best. If not all of them, at least those who actually appeared in the story, who had seen all of it happen, but Jess was painfully, magnificently aware of the difference. They would read the insights on her life and nod along, because they’d understand it — her — better.

Jess?

Jess read her words and found out he was right, that what he had always believed to be true was _actually true_ and that he wasn’t kidding himself when he thought he knew her better than anyone else. He didn’t understand her better by editing her manuscript: he simply had a confirmation.

Except that he had then arrived at that chapter, from his arrival in Stars Hollow to that damn day, that part, that paragraph, and he was staring at those words with the breath caught up in his throat.

“I think I may have loved you,” I told him.

_I think I always will._

“But I… I just need to let it go.”

_Truth is, I never really did._

It sounded like a love letter.

He was out of the door in less than ten seconds.

“Rory!”

He banged on the door with such a strength he felt he was going to break the glass; not that it would take that much, considering how thin it was. When Jess had lived there, he knew it, he had not loved the place, but it had been more a matter of being forced to stay in Stars Hollow and the lack of a bedroom for him, to make him feel that way.

Somehow he never thought Rory would end up in the same, small apartment on top of Luke’s diner… And yet there she was.

“Coming!”

And she was coming to the door.

She opened it with a smile that was tense and beaming at the same time, like she wasn’t sure if she had to be scared of the reason of his visit and yet she couldn’t bring herself not to be happy to see him — or at least that’s how he would have felt, if the roles had been reversed.

And how long they had been…

_I never really did._

Or maybe they had really been feeling the same thing; she just couldn’t admit it.

“I didn’t know you were in Stars Hollow! Come in!” she exclaimed and smiled, leading him to the kitchen where he gave him a beer. “How’s the new Truncheon Books office in Hartford going?”

“It’s fine.”

Caught off guard by the short answer, she hesitated. “Are you okay?”

“I’m editing the book, Rory. Gilmore Girls.”

He sat down and looked at his hands, his fingers, trying to understand how to proceed. He didn’t want to be too impulsive like he had always been, telling her he was in love with her — again, _still_ —, but he could almost touch the burning feeling in his chest that pushed him to just stand up and kiss her, cage her against the kitchen counter and hold her until she _talked_ instead of simply write.

“You wrote, and I quote: I think I may have loved you,” he recited. “I think I always will.”

Rory lowly gasped, eyes wide open with that breathtaking shade of blue that would have made a stronger man weep. “Jess…”

“I need to know,” he exclaimed and stood up, slowly walking towards her even though she moved back a few steps. He caged her in his arms, like he had just imagined to, and bent a little to erase a good amount of distance between them… And then he stopped, few inches short of kissing her.

“Tell me, Rory.”  
“I- Jess…” she whispered and the movement made their lips touch for a sweet second. “Jess…”

“Rory.”

“I’m pregnant.”

Taken aback, Jess stilled and looked down to her belly. “I might not be a Yale graduate, but I kind of noticed.”

“Hey!” she screeched. “I’m not that far in the pregnancy!”

He laughed, a deep, low laugh that sent shivers down her spine, and moved towards her once more. “You don’t need to tell me things, Rory. I just know. I know _you_.”

He breathed deeply, before looking straight into her eyes. “But I want to hear you say it.”

“Jess…”

She tried to kiss him and he moved his head back at the last second. “Tell me, Rory.”

“I think I may love you,” she murmured. It was similar to what she had wrote and yet it had that important, fundamental distinction that made Jess’ heart race in his chest and his hands grip hard the kitchen counter.  
He had worked so much, so, so much to become the kind of person she could be proud of, and now he had to close his eyes and breath and just absorb the importance of the moment.

He could almost see the teenager he had been stand there, a few steps away, putting everything he owned in a bag to leave and never turn back — except he did. He turned and stopped and walked back into the life of the person he had first and last loved.

He moved his head slowly, giving Rory the time to retreat if she wanted to, before letting their foreheads touch.

“I think I may love you,” she whispered.

He smiled. “I think I always will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Jess and Rory belong together and you can't change my mind.


End file.
